January 2006

I’m not French, I barely speak French (ou est le biblioteque?), but there’s one thing I do recognise, design, and they have it in spades, well, actually, in this case they have it on long-sleeve tees.

Amka (Moroccan for “someone who has their head a bit in the sky”) are a design studio headed by 27 year-old graphic designer Thomas Gayet, who make rather stylish clothes and posters. I took a particular shine to the Redflower long sleeve tee that they sell (costiness=â‚¬23), and they even have it in my size, wait, a French company that go above L, saints be praised!

I’m sure some guys would ummm and ahhh about the flower design, but I think it’s pretty neat, it’s off-centre, it’s not overtly feminine (though there is a girls version with the same design for â‚¬1 more), and anyway, who cares what everyone else thinks? You can always says it’s what everyone’s wearing in France…

I know, I should try and remain mysterious, semi-androgynous, and calm, but check out their models, boy do they raise an eyebrow or two.

It’s nice to get to mention a UK based company for a change, whilst I do love the work that Americans are doing (it’s where my t-shirt collection is from after all), I do take pride in seeing some homegrown talent.

Big Fluff are a London based design label, hand painting each item on limited runs (25 of each colour). Their ethos is quite clearly ‘design with people in mind’, all delivery is free to anywhere in the world, and Â£1 is donated to Medecin Sans Frontiers with every order. Even better than that, if you order 2 items at the moment you’ll get a free hand painted bag, buy 3 items and you’ll get a free t-shirt. And all of this comes on top of their current sale prices!

If I were to make a purchase, I’d recomment this sweater (pic to the right costiness=Â£39) for the guys, and this one for the ladies (costiness=Â£39 again, that’s equality ladies!).

I’ve decided not to do posting on the weekend (unless something REALLY catches my eye), like all the big pro-blogs do, because this will be a big pro-blog, someday. So that’s your lot for this week, I’ll leave with this thought.

Two buttons is enough, if you’re inclined to put pin badges on your clothes, bags, anything really, two is enough, any more than that and you look like you collect them, not accessorise with them. Covering your entire backpack with buttons basically tells people that they can go in your bag and steal your Avril Lavigne tickets. By all means have a collection that you can mix and match with, just be careful not to go overboard with it.

Anyway, let’s go beyond politics, I like thishoody from UO, the asymmetric lines give a little something different, and the runners say “hey, I’m a go getter.” Well, maybe they would if this was a personal development blog, but here they just say “hey, nice design.”

Costiness=$44.99 and they only ship to the U.S., Ca-na-da and Me-hico, so I won’t be able to enter that Seth Cohen lookalike competition, after-all. Seriously, what’s the deal with their range and models, research for their design team must be an O.C. box set and (polaroid) photo’s from a Death Cab for Cutie show.

Fredflare.com has been on my bookmarks list for an age, but like most webstores I like, I’ve never bought anything from them, just swooned over the variety of goods on offer. I haven’t exactly been swooning over this ‘Queen of Hearts’ girls’ hoody, but I do like its look. This thing is all about the love, first off, it’s red, the zipper tag has a heart print on it, there’s the obligatory heart over your physical heart, and you also get a heart button. Hearts are taking over the world!

Costiness=$44 dollars, less than $3 per heart (by my ridiculous attempt at counting the zipper tag).

Because I love the ladies (and they love me, right? mwah) I thought I would end the neglect of girls products here on HYA, so I found something a little special. Palmer Cash (who have a most generous affiliate system), seem to make a butt-load of excellent wearables, but my favourite has to be this girl’s hoody that, to quote Palmer Cash themselves “it’s very nice.” I guess it’s time to get onto the Xanax if I wanna buy it, since it’s not exactly a crazy-femme design, I think it’s just smaller than manly man sizes.

I may be treading on dangerous ground with this, perhaps showing my true emo colours (I’m about to go and see The Junior Varsity, Panic! At The Disco and The Academy Is… in about 20 minutes), but you can’t deny the simple style of placing a broken heart, in blue (for when you’re feeling down), on the left breast.

Then again, the blue they use, is baby blue! Sunshine and lollipops for all!

Now I know there’s plenty of broken heart merchandise out there, but this is slightly different, it’s cheap as hell, costiness=$16.99, I’m no mathematician, but I’m pretty sure you earn money by buying this hoody. Yah, pretty sure…

Spraygraphic don’t have a huge range, but who would want a big pile of crap when they could have a far smaller amount of gold? (seriously, I don’t know where this wisdom comes from)
The designs they do are all a bit off centre, not just in the ideological sense, but also in the literal sense, if you look at the middle of most of their products, you’ll probably find yourself staring at empty cotton (or boobs, their models are top notch, congratulations Spray-people!). This is something I like, because it’s different, and gives a bit of variety to a wardrobe filled with designs that fit between nipples.

I’d say my favourite piece of theirs (that suits this blog, their tees look real nice) is this Urban Showers hoody. Even with such a large graphic on the back it doesn’t seem to be too busy, and yet it isn’t ‘the stealth hoody’.
It isn’t too cheap, with a costiness factor of $52, but consider what you’d pay for a designer label, which would have a worse design, justified.

Full disclosure, I did put an affiliate link at the start of this post (though I would’ve posted this anyway), the second link direct to the item is not an affiliate link. I’m gonna slip it in quietly again, hoping no one notices. coughAFFILIATE LINKcough.

Anywho, it seems a bit redundant writing about Neighborhoodies, if you’re reading a blog about hoodies (et al) you probably already know about them. I just love their idea, style, and cutesy website. In their world, everyone deserves their own clothing line, luckily I already do (but am too moral to pimp it here, yay!), so they let you design what you wear, but in a cool way rather than a cafepress way. It isn’t that expensive either, with prices being comparable to regular non-custom schwag.

Whether you like the synth-power-pop stylings of HelloGoodbye or not, this is still a pretty nice track jacket. If you been trying to get a bit of variety in your wardrobe (mine’s pretty dark, and summer is sneaking up on us) then this could be a pretty decent option.

P.S. why is it that DriveThruRecords make it so hard to link to stuff in their store?

What Enclothe lacks in terms of range, they most certainly make us for in terms of design. This $35 hoody is based on their pirate loving Ghost ship tee that I’ve wanted to buy for ages, the detail of putting the ship on the back is real innovative, leaving the front simple (save for the anchor).

Looks like Aeropostale are having a clearance sale, with up to 60% off some of their retro-esque designs. There are bargains aplenty to be had, and whilst they don’t quite accomodate my size, it would just be mean not to let you guys know about it. My personal favourite at the momento has to be the simple and damn cheap track jacket that you can see over there –>

Ooh, first proper post, no real visitors, I guess no ones really gonna hear about the bargains to be had.

Hi, I’m Andy and the aim of this blog is to showcase the considerable talents of many clothing designers on the web. As the title suggests, the focus will be on articles of clothing that cover your arms, so this is not another t-shirt blog, there’s already got enough excellentoptions there.